


To the Stars

by DoorKeeper9



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Bartender Ben, Exes, F/M, Han is dead :(, Hurt/Comfort, Implied hea, Light Angst, Mentions of Cancer, One Shot, Reylo Prompt, Somebody tell Ben he has a tattoo fetish, Wee bit of smut but nothing too much, gratuitous use of endearments, tattoo artist Rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:55:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23719324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoorKeeper9/pseuds/DoorKeeper9
Summary: Ben comes looking for his ex and some ink in this Reylo oneshot. Based on the prompt:"Ben just lost Han&decides to get a tattoo. It’s late&Rey is about to close but let’s him in. This leads to intimate conversation, drinking, a tattoo with lots of meaning, and the rest of the night and future ahead of them.Bonus: They’re ex’s"
Relationships: Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 30
Kudos: 228





	To the Stars

It starts with texts, a few weeks before.

Rey Niima is at the shop working on a customer’s shoulder piece when her phone buzzes, interrupting her music. She glances over in its general direction, hand lifting to hover so that her machine doesn’t wander anywhere that it shouldn’t. Rey waits a brief moment, but there’s no subsequent buzz, so she turns back to the business of inking sunflower petals.

Afterwards, once Rey’s stripped off her cheap latex gloves and pocketed the cash tip, she unlocks her splintered cellphone screen to see what the buzz was about. And she swears to herself, because it’s…

“Ben _fucking_ Solo.” 

The text itself is fairly innocent, just a link to an Onion article about tattoo artists, but there can’t be anything innocent about Ben texting her out of the blue. Not after eight _months_ of silence, the prick.

“Get a load of this,” Rey calls out to Rose, who’s on lunch break. “My dickhead ex is rising from the grave.”

Rose shakes her head in disgust, sleek black bangs swishing across her forehead. Rose is one of the first people Rey gravitated towards when she started her apprenticeship at Takodana a little under a year ago; her tattoos are awesome, on and off her own skin, and she has a practical take on life that closely matches Rey’s own.

Rose also is great at taking her side.

“Dump him again,” she boos, dropping her burger.

“Would if I could,” sniffs Rey. And yet...a swirl of conflicting emotions bubbles up in her belly. Yes, she dumped Ben. Yes, it was for the best. But...well...she just has a couple of feelings about it, that’s all.

Rey’s fingers hover over her keypad. She probably can find an Onion article that riffs on bartenders…

_Nope._ Rey pockets her phone, blowing out a quick breath. _Not a good idea._

\---

The texts keep coming, though. Not often enough to be truly intrusive, and nothing that requires a reply, but they start looming at the back of her mind, much as Ben used to physically loom over her. He was- is- a _big_ man. The first time Rey showed up to bartend at Hosnian Prime, she saw him towering behind the counter like a standing bull, thick muscles straining his tight black dress shirt. Her first thought was _there’s no way I can fit in there with him_ . Her second thought was _there’s no way he can fit inside me._

Maybe that was an inappropriate thought to have about a new coworker, but it would be the last of its kind for the next several weeks. That’s because Ben immediately put his sparkling personality on display.

“You can’t show those tattoos,” he’d barked at her, glowering. “It’s unprofessional.”

Rey had blinked at him, then looked down at herself. Hosnian Prime was an upscale cocktail bar, true, but the manager that hired her had only said to wear black. Rey _was_ wearing black; she had on a dark knee-length dress that wrapped tight around her in all the right places- a real-tip maker. The dress didn’t have any sleeves, though, which meant that her inked arms were on full display. The nightbloomer flower, the lone wolf, gears, stars...Rey hadn’t bothered to make her tattoos cohesive, but she loved every one. And she certainly wasn’t going to hide them.

“Get fucked,” Rey replied, eloquently.

Ben blinked, and that was their introduction.

\---

The first time Rey texts back, it’s right after taking a shot with Finn.

“I gotta say _some_ thing,” she slurs, shaking her head to clear away the cheap tequila fumes. She and Finn met while they both worked at Hosnian Prime; both had moved on at about the same time. When everything else fell apart.

“Well,” Finn says carefully. “You don’t actually. Have to.”

Rey looks at him crooked. Mostly because her head is lolling.

“Do _you_ think I should?” she asks, righting herself. “I mean, _you_ saw him. For a couple of weeks, anyway. Was he-” Rey swallows hard, starts that sentence again. “I mean, did he _miss_ me?”

Finn sighs and plops his head on his hand, looking at Rey. “We’re not really tight, me and Ben.”

“But you know him,” Rey urges. “You knew before anyone else that he liked me!”

Finn opens his mouth to respond, then lets it flop shut, shaking his head.

“You do you, Rey. It’s your call.”

It is, so Rey does. She pulls up her phone and types (somewhat nostalgically):

<Ha ha>

<Get fucked>

\---

It’s true, about Finn. He somehow knew about Rey and Ben before Rey did, and certainly before Ben would admit it. Finn had leaned against the bar while Ben was getting a fresh bottle of gin and whispered:

“Rey, come _on_ . He’s wearing cologne. He _only_ wears cologne on the nights that you work.”

Rey had scoffed, muddling a drink. “Yeah, and he _only_ yells at me during our shifts.” She cast a baleful look towards the back door Ben had gone through. “If he didn’t earn such good tips, I would switch.”

“I dare you,” Finn said, waggling his eyebrows.

“What?”   
  


“I _dare_ you,” he grinned. “Make a move on him tonight. Nothing crazy, just like, find an excuse to touch him. I promise you, the man will turn red.”

Rey had scoffed again, but more weakly. She looked down thoughtfully at the drink she was muddling, then towards the back door. Ben was a handsome guy, even though he perpetually scowled. Fucking him would not be the worst of worst case scenarios.

“Huh,” was all that she’d said.

Later that night, when they were closing the bar, Rey had lingered near Ben at the register. 

“Are you shortchanging me again?” Rey had asked, leaning against the counter. She was wearing another little black dress, this one with sheer black netting over her chest. It displayed the creeping vine tattoos along her collarbones, so she liked wearing it just to piss Ben off.

Ben shot a dark-eyed glare over at her now, still flipping through cash. “What,” he sneered, “need to save up for a tattoo on your ass?”

Ooooh, if Finn was right about this, it would be a hate-fuck to remember.

“No,” said Rey tartly. “But maybe _you_ should. Get a flower, to go with the stick up it.”

Ben snorted. “I’m never getting a tattoo. They’re poison, you know.”

“Really?” Rey stepped closer. She reached out and lightly brushed her fingers down his bared forearm. “You’d look good with a tattoo right here.”

Ben froze mid-count, eyes darting over to where her delicate fingers fell on his skin. “I’m not a canvas,” he muttered, but his voice seemed to lack its usual acid.

“What about here?” Rey purred, enjoying this game. She reached out with her other hand to lightly touch his chest, coincidentally moving closer to him. Ben took a deep breath, swelling under her hand...and then abruptly broke away, turning his back on her.

“Not interested,” he growled, apparently unmoved.

Rey tried not to feel disappointed. She was about to apologize and go, but just then Ben smoothed his hair back and tucked it behind one ear. One endearingly large, and _extremely_ red ear.

So _that’s_ where he blushed.

\---

Ben didn’t text for a while after _Ha ha get fucked_. 

Rey tried not to let it bother her; it was _his_ fault they’d broken up. He’d been an ass and a dead end and so stupidly _stubborn_ . Maybe she’d had some unrealistic expectations. Maybe they’d both been terrible communicators. But come on; he’d stormed out and left her when they were visiting _his_ parents! The Thanksgiving turkey turned greasy and cold, and no matter how many times Rey called his phone, Ben wouldn’t pick up. Rey has been in many awkward situations in her life, but the subsequent car ride to the train station with Leia and Han had been possibly one of the worst. Just Rey, trying not to cry, and two duffel bags in the back. She’d been tempted to leave Ben’s duffel behind, but habit wouldn’t let her. Also it gave her the opportunity to chuck the bag at his head from her two story apartment window the next day, and _that_ had been satisfying.

That had also been the last time they’d spoken.

\---

<I’m getting a tattoo>

That’s the text sitting on Rey’s screen, waiting for her when she finally puts down her machine to get lunch. 

Rey’s first reaction is utter indignation. Ben had given her _so much_ shit for her ink when they’d both worked at the bar. Even after they started dating, Ben had still teased her about them...nevermind that they made his eyes glow hot every time she stripped before sex. He’d always maintained that tattoos were poison, which is why Rey’s next reaction is...confusion.

<Congratulations?>

<Are you for real?>

Rey is scarfing down pizza 10 minutes later when her phone buzzes. She picks it up, heedless of the grease on her fingers.

<Yes>

Gray dots indicate he’s still typing. Then:

<Do you still work at Takodana?>

Rey thoughtfully moves her jaw, considering. He could be using this text as a smokescreen, just trying to hunt her down. He could show up and make a scene, jeopardizing her job. She _almost_ says “No.” But then it hits her like bricks: if Ben gets a tattoo from somebody else, it will be worse than if he’d slept with a hundred girls since their breakup. 

Or just as bad, anyway.

Against her better judgement, she says:

<Yes>

<I’m working tonight>

Ben doesn’t reply, no matter how many times she checks her phone.

\---

Rey’s afternoon disappears in a blur of inking snake scales, and before she knows it it’s 8:15 and she’s the last one in the shop.

“Thanks again!” she calls after her customer, a waifish young woman who now has a flowery serpent curling over her thigh. Rey’s pleased with how it came out, and she pulls out her phone to look at the pictures she snapped. She composes a quick Instagram post, tagging the girl and Takodana.

When she looks up again, Ben Solo is standing on the stairs leading down to the shop.

Suddenly, eight months seem like forever and also the blink of an eye.

Rey crosses her arms, self-conscious. She’s only wearing a sleeveless shirt without a bra underneath; between that and her grungy jeans, she’s a long ways removed from the smart cocktail dresses of Hosnian Prime. Ben is only looking at her face, though.

“I thought you’d be closed,” he says in a rusty voice. He’s got facial hair now.

“I’m still here,” Rey says in a smaller voice than she’d like. She clears her throat. “Come on in.”

\---

Ben had never visited her at Takodana, not for the month that her apprenticeship and their relationship overlapped. Finn had thought Ben was sulking about Rey quitting her bartending job, but whatever the excuse, it had been the first of Three Signs that their relationship was over. Getting ditched at his parents’ house had been Sign #2.

Takodana is a small parlor with a register up front and 4 tables sprawled out behind it. The walls are plastered with photos and designs, some of them Rey’s, and bare fluorescent strips keep the lighting bright and even. Ben walks into the middle of the shop and stops, looking around. He’s reflected a dozen times over by the mirrors that line the back wall. Rey watches him warily.

“Kind of a dive, right?” she says, preemptively defensive.

“No,” he says simply. That one word, that one slice of his voice, is enough to send spikes of emotion trembling through Rey’s system. Her senses are operating in overdrive, cataloging every second of this encounter to process the difference between Then and Now.

Ben is wearing a suit, she notices. An actual, formal suit, though it looks a bit like his bartending attire because the shirt and tie are black beneath the black jacket. His skin looks even paler than normal, and the dark circles that habitually haunt his face seem carved in, slightly red at the edges. His dark eyes look puffy as well and he’s swaying a bit on his feet. Rey’s eyes widen at that; it’s Ben’s first and most subtle tell that he’s drunk.

“Ben,” she says sharply, and he turns to look at her when she says his name. “I’m not gonna ink you if you’re wasted. That’s against policy.”

He swallows. “Is it against policy to tattoo after hours?”

Rey’s lips twist. “Well, yes. But that’s a moot point if you’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk.”

“You are _wobbling.”_

“I’m getting a tattoo,” he says thinly. So _stubborn._

“Of what?” Rey says, exasperated. “Finally getting that flower on your ass?”

Ben shakes his head. He pats at his suit jacket pockets like he’s just remembering they’re there, then reaches in. Rey is intrigued in spite of herself; she steps closer as he pulls out a crumpled paper, folded in half. Then he unfolds it, and it’s not just a page...it’s a card. Dwarfed in his huge hands, Ben is holding an old birthday card. It’s blue, with bright yellow stars on the front, and it reads “Happy 8th Birthday!” in cartoonish font. Ben gives it to her with trembling hands, opening it up as he does so.

Rey looks down, brow furrowed.

_Hey kid,_ someone’s written inside at the top. The handwriting is as scrawled as Ben’s is neat. _Love you to the stars and back._

Between the words, someone’s drawn a cartoon spaceship, oddly horseshoe shaped, blasting off.

“I want that,” Ben croaks, and he points to the spaceship.

Rey looks up at him, horrified. Black, she finally registers. Ben is wearing all black.

“Baby,” she says, eight months forgotten, taking him by the arm, “What happened to Han?”

\---

The first time Rey met Ben’s father, it all ended in tears.

“You don’t give a shit about _anyone_!” Rey had screamed, leaning her head out the bedroom door. They’d just gotten home from a disastrous dinner with his parents; it had taken weeks of wheedling for Rey to convince him to let her meet them, yet it had all fallen apart in mere minutes. Now Ben paced in the hallway, looking like a caged tiger. 

“That’s not true and you know it,” he snapped, glaring at her. “Don’t confuse ‘anyone’ with my father.”

“They’re your family, Ben,” Rey had shouted, voice cracking. “How can you be so awful? I was _there,_ I saw, you just blew up at him-”

“You shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” he shouted, exasperated, “It was a terrible idea, and you pushed me into it-”

“ _I_ pushed you?” Rey’s fists were tight at her sides. “Most people just grin and bear it when they have to go home-”

“What do you know about what people do?” Ben snarled. “ _You_ don’t have a family, _you_ don’t fucking know!”

Rey stared at him, breath caught, eyes wide. A second later his angry face crumbled, realizing what he’d done.

“Sweetheart,” he said, low and urgent, “I’m _sorry_ , I didn’t mean that-”

Rey’s voice cracked in a sob. She stumbled backwards into the bedroom. “Don’t you _dare_ call me that, not right now…”

They didn’t mention Ben’s family for months afterwards, and were happier for it.

\---

“The cancer was so far advanced when they found it, there was nothing to do,” Ben says, face haggard. He’s slumped in one of the swiveling chairs along the edge of the shop near the mirrors. His suit jacket is getting heinously rumpled, but he doesn’t look much like he cares.

“How long ago?” Rey’s face is still frozen with shock. She remembers his gruff, gray haired dad from the couple times they’d met; the first thing he’d said was “Nice ink,” and Ben, standing stiffly at her side, had glared. That had been the last Sign that their relationship wasn’t going to work out; Rey had always wanted desperately to be a part of a family, and Ben had so clearly been averse to his own. 

“How long since the cancer?” Ben scrubs blearily at his now-scruffy cheeks. His voice is eerily toneless. “He got diagnosed in December, maybe. He died last week. The funeral was today.”

“Jesus.” Rey drops her head, staring down at the floor. She wants to take Ben’s hand, she wants to put her arms around him, she wants to cry at how terrible it is...but she also knows that it isn’t her place. Not anymore.

“I’ll do the tattoo,” she says instead. 

At least she can show him some Takodana hospitality.

Rey gets up and kneels by the drawers under the mirror. She feels around in the back until her fingers touch cool glass. The handle of Captain Morgan swishes as she pulls it out into the light.

“We should have something fancier,” Rey says sheepishly. “But this is all we have for pre-ink relaxation.” She shrugs at Ben, who’s looking numbly at her. “Normally my clients aren’t already drunk, but for you I’ll make an exception.”

“Good,” Ben says hoarsely. “I don’t care what we drink.”

Rey decides not to bother with glasses. She unscrews the cap and takes a thick glug of the brown stuff, then walks over and offers the jug to Ben. Their fingers briefly meet on the curves of the handle.

“To Han,” she says, watching him lift it. Ben takes a long, drawn out swig, then lowers it with a sigh.

“To Han,” he says drearily. “I guess.”

“What do you _mean_ , you guess?” Rey snaps, grabbing the rum back from him. “He was your father. I know you didn’t see eye to eye-”

“We did not,” he says forcefully. “On anything.” He seems to rouse himself, points a large finger at Rey. “And you knew that, so don’t act surprised.”

Rey crosses her arms tightly but keeps her mouth shut. Ben squints at her, warming up to his subject. 

“This card?” he says, fingers crumpling the paper, “was something he _made_ for me. The only thing. You know that? My mom bought the rest. Always said, ‘this is from me and dad,’ or ‘dad couldn’t be here.’” 

“He was _trying_ ,” Rey says, unable to keep quiet. “If you weren’t so angry youd’ve seen he was-”

“Making it up to me?” Ben mocks, knuckles white on the card. “Too late now!” he bites out, standing in one powerful lurch. Rey involuntarily takes a step back. He is, after all, a large man, and she _is_ alone in the store with him. Ben just stares at her, though, even as his face becomes tight and bitter with anger.

“I stayed with him,” Ben spits. “I fucking hate hospitals, you know that. And I sat in the hospital with him, day after day, and I watched my- my piece-of-shit father die, and I held his hand, and I read to him, and I did all the shit that you’re supposed to do, Rey. I _did_.” His eyes blaze at her as he takes a deep breath. “And it didn’t _matter._ He didn’t wake up. We didn’t talk. He died and I cried and it didn’t _matter_.”

He drops his accusatory glare after this tirade and stands, clutching the card near his chest. Rey stays where she is, suddenly feeling very small as a person. Out of her league.

“I-” she says quietly, “I didn’t think you-”

“I’d do that?” Ben says. He sounds more watery than angry now. “Yeah,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I didn’t think I would, either.” He turns his back on Rey and stares down at the floor, seeming tired and harmless again.

Rey takes a tentative step towards him, and then another. Cautiously, she reaches out and takes a hold of his suit jacket, starting to lightly tug it off. Ben twists his head halfheartedly to see what she’s doing, then goes limp and lets her pull it down from his arms. Rey drapes the jacket over the chair and walks back to stand in front of Ben. She reaches up and starts picking at the knot of his tie, trying to loosen it.

Ben reaches up and catches her hands in his own, bending his head over them.

“Rey,” he says, low. “I wish you’d been there. I kept asking myself what you would do.”

“Ben,” says Rey gently, heart breaking a little.

“Say it again, call me what you did before,” he mumbles.

Rey sighs, forcibly reminding herself this is all a terrible idea. “Ben, that’s not-”

“I missed you,” he says, unexpectedly cutting her off. He raises his head enough to look into her eyes, and he looks messed up but sincere. “I shouldn’t have texted you, I know, but I was going crazy, just sitting there. I wanted to talk to you.”

_And I told you to get fucked,_ Rey thinks, ashamed. She sighs again, this time resigned, and gently frees her hands from his grasp. She lets them come to rest on his chest, on either side of his buttons.

“Baby,” she says, voice curling protectively over the pet name. Ben closes his eyes and lowers his head again, listening. “You did good. Really. I’m proud of what you did for your dad.”

Ben lets out a long, shuddering sigh. For a long moment it’s quiet in the shop. Then he looks up, brown eyes liquid and clearer than they’ve been up til now.

“What do I need to do?” he asks simply. “For the tattoo?”

Rey takes a steadying breath. She doesn’t move her hands. Yet.

“Well,” she says, “Where do you want it?”

“Here.” Ben reaches to touch his own ribcage, close to his heart. Rey internally winces a little; working over the ribs can be difficult for artists, and it’s certainly more painful for clients.

“How big do you want it?” she asks, slipping into a more natural business rhythm.

Ben takes her hand cautiously, and when she doesn’t immediately protest, he turns it over within his two larger ones. They’re warm on her skin.

“Like this,” he says, tracing a circle on her palm that’s about half its size.

“That tickles,” Rey says, smiling instinctively.

“You’re still ticklish,” Ben says, half a question, looking up at her face.

She rolls her eyes. “Not that much changes in eight months, Ben.” 

“No.” His gaze is appraising. “Maybe not.”

\---

They were lucky that his housemates weren’t home, the first time they’d had sex. The two of them had stumbled in, drunk, Rey yanking his tie so he’d hunch over and kiss her. There was fumbling, and panting, and a mumbled comment about being on the pill. Then Ben’s belt fell open with a jingle of metal, and Rey’s back slammed up against the hallway wall, and Ben swiped his hot tongue along the curl of her flower tattoo as he pushed up inside of her.

“ _Jesus,_ ” she’d groaned at the ceiling, fingers clawing his shoulders as she inched up the wall. “It’s not gonna fit!”

“It’ll fit,” Ben growled, and he flipped the skirt of her dress up and reached down to play with her clit. 

It was a lot like that, the next several times.

Finally, after a few weeks of smoldering looks and bruised knees, Rey brought him home to her actual bed, and it wasn’t even past midnight, and when she pulled off her dress he stared up at her, lips parted, eyes tracing the ink on her skin.

“You like them now?” Rey smirked, kneeling naked above him by the edge of the bed. Ben just shut his mouth and swallowed, an awed glow lighting his eyes. Rey casually reached out and took his stiff cock in her hand, stroking it softly.

“Looks like you do,” she cooed. Ben never argued he didn’t, because she set about keeping his mouth occupied.

\---

Rey locks the front door of Takodana, even flipping the switch to lower the grate. She doesn’t want anyone else stumbling in for a late-night tattoo, and anyway...well, she just wants to be alone. With Ben, that is.

“I’m going to sketch it on first,” she calls over her shoulder, “So take off your shirt.” She aims for a dispassionate tone like she uses for all her other clients, but her pulse beats a little faster nonetheless.

“How much do I owe you?” Ben’s voice rumbles from behind her.

An explanation? A thousand dollars? A 15 minute ride on his redwood cock?

Rey shakes her head briskly to clear it. “We’ll figure it out,” she says, reaching up to coil her brown hair into a messy bun; keeps it out of her face while she’s working. Then she turns.

Ben has taken off his dress shirt and tie and tossed them onto the chair with his jacket. Rey _knew_ this was coming, but it doesn’t change the impact of seeing her ex barechested from this angle, lean waist fading up into thick, hard muscle. Her hands ball up into fists, gaze riveted. She’s _not_ going to touch him. Not yet.

Ben looks back at her. When they first started dating, he was smugly confident about his physique; Rey couldn’t hold back from saying the stupidest things about it during sex. Now, he looks a little wary, like he’s afraid Rey is going to say something cutting about him. Rey did have a bad habit of doing that, near the end. The flip side of loving someone is knowing exactly how to hurt them the most.

Rey sighs out her nose. She opts to say nothing about it, good or bad.

“Can you lift your arm up?” she asks instead, studiously polite. “I need to get in there to sketch the design.”

Ben nods and raises his left arm, seeming relieved. Rey steps up to him and picks up a sharpie. She looks at Han’s card, then back at Ben’s ribs. Tilts her head to the side.

“Do you want it at this same angle?” she asks, voice faint with preoccupation.

“Yes.”

“Just the outline?”

“Whatever you think.”

Rey glances up at Ben. He’s looking down at her, face open with booze and trust. She’s awfully close to his body, close enough that she can feel the edges of his body heat like a planet’s atmosphere radiating towards her. She looks back down, blushing faintly.

“How about here?” Rey reaches out and delicately touches her fingertips to his bare skin, several inches below his armpit. 

“Yes,” Ben says, and his voice is unsteady. Rey doesn’t trust herself to make eye contact with him; what if his ears have turned red? She does, however, let her fingers brush gently over the warm patch of his skin before withdrawing her hand. Then she brings up the sharpie and sets to work.

\---

Everything sucked after the breakup. Rey had sobbed in frustration in the confines of her bedroom, probably convincing her housemates that a wild animal lived where their friend once had been. Dumping Ben was supposed to make her feel empowered and better, but instead Rey just felt hollow and sick. At Finn’s suggestion she wrote out a list of the Three Signs that had convinced her to do this, and she taped it up onto her door. Eventually, the crying stopped and functional numbness took over. She spent a lot of time at Takodana, and a lot of time drawing new designs. She started feeling better. She made friends with Rose. She got a new tattoo. She even slept with other people...a few of them, anyway. By the end of the eight months, Rey had:

  1. Stopped doing a double take at all tall, dark-haired men
  2. Stopped hearing Ben’s reaction to everything in her head
  3. Stopped imagining what their kids would have looked like
  4. ~~Stopped comparing her current lovers to Ben~~



The last one was tricky. It wasn’t so much the sex, but the part afterwards, when they were laying in bed. Ben would have traced her tattoos and traded dumb stories with her. He would have tickled her in that one spot just above her hip that drove her crazy. He would have told her he loved her, unexpectedly; that had happened a couple of Aprils ago, a few months into their honest-to-god dating relationship.

Rey had flicked at his forehead.

“Don’t mess with me,” she’d warned.

“I’m not messing with you,” he’d said. He was sprawled on his stomach over her legs, chin resting on top of her belly. “I wouldn’t.”

\---

There’s no way around it; Ben’s afraid of the needle.

“Will it hurt?” he asks, swallowing thickly. He stares up at the ceiling, flat on his back on one of the tables. His bare chest rises and falls more quickly than normal.

“A little,” says Rey truthfully. “Especially because it’s on your ribcage, and there’s no fat to pad it. But it’ll feel very shallow, like a burn or an itching pain.”

Ben’s brown eyes flick over to meet hers; they’re still a bit glassy with drink, but the emotion is earnestly conflicted. 

“Will you talk to me?”

Rey swallows. “Okay.” She pulls on one latex glove. Then she looks down at him, wide-eyed on the table. It’s not often that this powerful man is stretched out looking so helpless. Impulsively, she reaches out with her bare hand and rests it on his stomach. He inhales, surprised.

Rey rubs her hand gently over his skin. “If you want me to stop working, let me know,” she says softly. “At any time. You don’t have to do this. Okay?”

“Okay,” he says, closing his eyes.

Rey slips on her other glove, turns on her machine, and bends towards the sketch on his side.

At first contact Ben gasps, his abs sucking in slightly. Rey’s eyes flicker up to his parted lips, then quickly back down. She keeps moving her machine and his eyes shut more tightly, mouth pursing with pain.

“You probably think I’m pathetic,” he mutters, breathing in through his nose.

“Don’t worry,” Rey says, gaze focused. “I won’t tell anyone.” She’s decided to just do an outline of the ship; it’s quicker for her and for him, and there wasn’t much detail to begin with. She licks her lips and then asks: “What do you want to talk about?”

Ben’s brow creases. Rey expects him to talk about Han, or the funeral, but instead he surprises her.

“Do you remember,” he says, halting as the needle moves. “When we- camped on the beach?”

Rey snorts.

“ _That_ was pathetic,” she says, rounding a corner of the design. “I really thought I knew how to put together a tent.”

“Liar,” Ben murmurs, sounding amused in spite of his discomfort.

“Maybe,” Rey says with a small answering smile. “Maybe I just wanted to get you out into the great outdoors.”

“You almost drowned us,” Ben protests.

“I didn’t know the water would come _closer_ ,” Rey says. “Who knew the ocean had tides?”

“Everyone,” he grates. “3rd graders and up.”

“Well, that makes it your fault…”

They talk back and forth softly as the minutes slip by, the shop still and bright and the two of them caught in its center. It’s nice, actually; it reminds Rey of being in bed with him, shooting the shit. It can’t last very long, but right _now_ , in this moment, the two of them stand on the bridge between Past and Future, and it feels like a truce.

Rey strokes her machine like a pen over Ben’s flesh, and the outline of the spaceship starts to sink in. There’s a kind of wonder to it, a making of permanence. Whatever else happens after tonight, Rey knows that her work, her _mark_ , will stay with Ben all his life. Maybe through other relationships. Maybe through to his grave, when he’ll be lowered like Han, still and cold, into the earth. This silly spaceship will still be there, faded and tucked in right next to his heart.

Rey sniffs and leans back. She discreetly wipes at her eyes with her forearm, annoyed at herself. When she looks back, Ben’s eyes are open and he’s looking at her. He lifts his hand from the table and reaches out, just short of touching her face.

“Sunshine?” he says, tentative.

Rey laughs at the old nickname. It’s not a very happy laugh. She sniffs again, turning her face away from his hand.

“I guess I just...wish this had happened sooner, you know?” she says, tightening her throat. “I always thought you’d look good with a tattoo. And I could have drawn one for you, we could have made it together.” She sighs, looking down. “We’re doing this one instead. Because of him. Like this.”

There’s a lot bundled into _Like this_.

“Yeah,” Ben says simply.

Rey looks at him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Sometimes, Ben’s greatest asset is his certainty. At its worst, he’s cocky and smug, but at his best, he seems like a stone lighthouse, weathering the encroaching waves. Rey misses the feeling of being there with him, feeling equally safe and secure.

She glances over at the spaceship tattoo. Its two halves don’t meet yet, but it’s almost done. Ben shifts his fingers closer, so he can lightly brush her cheek. Rey lets him. Then she sniffs once again and raises her machine.

“Last push,” she says, determined. “You ready?”

\---

Ben dropped down into the nearest white fold-out chair, stretching his legs, and Rey promptly sat on his thigh. They were both sweating, partly because it was an outdoor wedding in August, and partly because they’d been dancing on the makeshift dance floor for the last four hours. Hux and Phasma were old friends of Ben’s, and they threw a good party.

“I hate dancing,” he said.

“That’s what you always say,” Rey said, rolling her eyes. “Right before you start dancing with me.”

Rey leaned back against him, not caring about the sweat. He wrapped one arm around her waist and she lolled her head straight back onto his shoulder, looking up at the stars.

“Hey,” she said, after a minute. She turned her head just a little and reached up, tapping his face.

He grunted.

“Love you,” she said.

“I know.”

She stretched, feeling luxurious, and kept one bare, tattooed arm up in the air.

“What do you think,” she drawled. “Would you marry someone even if they were covered with _poisonous_ ink?”

“Nope,” he said.

She’d glanced sharply at him, stung even though she’d been joking. Mostly. Ben was looking up at her arm, face red with exertion, hair slicked back from his face. He glanced over at her and smiled between breaths.

“Not someone. Maybe you, though,” he’d said. 

She’d flicked at his forehead again. 

\---

Rey carefully smears neosporin over Ben’s brand new tattoo, then tapes gauze over it.

“How does it feel?” she asks, eyeing her handiwork as she strips off her gloves.

“Fine,” he says, sounding surprised. “Sore, but not bad.” Ben starts to sit up, but winces a little and stops, propped up on his elbows. His abs crinkle, and Rey guiltily tears her gaze away from _that_ sight and back up to his face. He looks over at her.

“Thank you,” he says, almost soberly. “I wasn’t expecting anything good to happen today.”

Rey looks down, nervously tracing the star on her forearm. “It’s ok,” she says, shrugging. Then: “I’m glad it was me. A little something of Han and something of me.”

Ben smiles at her crookedly. “I wish I could give you one,” he says. “Return the favor.”

“I already have one,” Rey says thoughtlessly. Her eyes widen at the slip-up and she turns away, hastily setting her machine aside.

“One what?” Ben asks, curious. Then, with increased interest: “You have a tattoo of me?”

“A tattoo of you couldn’t fit on me,” Rey snarks, not looking at him.

“But something else,” Ben prompts. There’s something urgent and anxious in his voice. “Something that reminds you of me? Is that what you meant?”

Rey sighs. She turns in place, swiveling to look at her client. Ben is still propped on the table, chest bare, long legs almost falling off, black hair swept around his face. That new mustache and goatee don’t look _bad_ , per se, but it’s different. The only thing different, in some ways.

Rey trudges to his side. “Let the record show,” she says wearily, resigned to her fate,“that Rose and I were both _very_ trashed when this happened.” She unbuttons her jeans, then half-turns and slides both her pants and underwear down, revealing the curve of her ass. She doesn’t miss the way Ben’s adam’s apple jumps at the sight; he leans closer even though it must pain him.

“That’s new,” he says, mesmerized.

It’s a stupid tattoo. In fact, it took Rey a whole day to remember that she’d even gotten it. An angry bee gives the illusion of jabbing its stinger into her skin, right into her left cheek.

“There it is, your tattoo,” she says dryly. Ben frowns, confused.

Rey sighs.

“Get it?” she says. “Something that starts with “bee” that’s a pain in my ass.”

It’s silent. Ben’s eyes widen.

Then his lips sputter. He covers his face with one hand, but his shoulders shake and he’s chuckling, louder and louder. He _snorts_ , the smug bastard, in the most undignified way, turning onto his side.

“I _know_ ,” says Rey, though her lips twitch upwards.

Ben laughs out loud. He still covers his face but he’s grinning under his hand. “Oh no,” he groans, “sweetheart…” He cracks up again.

“It’s an insult to _you,_ you sonofabitch,” Rey protests. She’s smiling, though, and she impulsively scrabbles one hand at his un-inked ribs, making him twist wildly away. She’s not the only one that’s ticklish.

“Stop,” he protests, weakly waving his hand that’s not clutching his stomach. “I can’t take it.”

“Weakling,” Rey purrs, grabbing him by the wrists. She tugs his arms up over his head and he flops onto his back, grinning up at her, eyes clear. _Her_ Ben, she thinks, breathless above him. Ben on his best day. She leans down before she can think any more, kissing him.

Ben only stills for a second, then strains up to meet her. His wrists are caught in her hands, but his lips latch to hers and he plants his tongue like a flag in her mouth, anchoring her to him. Rey makes a small needy sound and releases him, bringing her hands to his face, where they curl through his new facial hair. Ben sits up, still kissing her.

“Rey,” he says finally, pulling away. He looks dazed and amused and confused all in one, struggling to make sense of this all.

“Baby,” says Rey, “I-”

“I didn’t come here for this,” Ben blurts, quickly cutting her off. “I don’t want you to think that I-” He turns red- his whole face. “I mean, I did want this, but not- not like this.” He looks at her, swallowing hard. “I’m a little fucked up,” he admits. “You tell me to go and I’ll go. But I’d call you tomorrow. And I’ll think of you tonight.”

Rey’s eyes hood, and she scrubs her fingertips along his face.

“You’re hard to dump, you know that?” she says, dizzy with want and dissonance. There are so _many_ versions of Ben: the one shouting, the one smiling, the one caring for Han. So many versions of _her_ : her snapping, her laughing, her sobbing alone. Can’t they roll the die again, see which sides land on top? It could be different, this time. It _could_ be.

She leans in towards him, her Three Reasons slipping away. 

“Call me what you did before,” she murmurs.

Ben pulls her in against him. 

“Sweetheart,” he sighs, looking down at her lips. 

“Sunshine,” he says, fingers soft in her hair. His other hand drops from her waist to her ass and he squeezes it, hard, palm engulfing the bee. 

  
“ _My_ sunshine,” he growls. And they kiss until she sees stars.

**Author's Note:**

> This prompt just spoke to me! My version of Reylo here definitely skews more real world and less "in character," but I loved having the chance to write a hard Rey and make the two of them fight. I was originally planning to make them fuck in the parlor, but that ended up feeling a little off to me, so I left it up to your imagination ;)


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